Adventures in Reading 

BY 

ALICE HUTCHINS DRAKE 


PN 58 
. D8 

Copy 1 




Copyright, 1917 

By Alice H-utch'ms DvoKe. 


DEC -8 1917 


©CI.A477929 

1/W I I 


Adventures in Reading 


To the Fair Adventure Which Greets Me Every Day: 
Mary-My-Mother 


Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know, 
are a substantial world, both pure and good. 

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 
our pastime and our happiness will grow. 

— Wordsworth. 

In the Library of Congress there is a painting which 
shows a boy in the midst of a wonderful adventure—one 
which will lead him away from his friends in the valley 
to the garden of the gods. It is Ganymede, nestled in 
the eagle’s down, soaring high toward Mount Olympus, 
where he, a little mortal child, will soon be cup-bearer 
to the gods. 

In the course of the year, hundreds of persons pause 
before the painting, conscious of their kinship with the 
boy, and the secret of that kinship is the spirit of adven¬ 
ture which is within us all. 

Adventure does not come to everyone. A common¬ 
place life, far removed from the exhilaration of adventure, 
seems to be the usual experience; but there is a way 
by which circumstance may be thwarted—one may go 
a-journeying in the Realm of Books. Here, through the 
magic touch of someone’s hand, the miracle of the 
creation of visible thought will lead one into the bound¬ 
less realm of the printed word. 

The spirit craves digression from the daily round, 
even though the digression entails responsibility, and if 











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one ventures forth, there clings to the adventurous one 
a glamour, a charm, a means of drawing close to the heart 
of another, through the magic of responsiveness. 

Arthur Pendragon adventurously began life itself on 
the crest of a wave, tossed by it into the waiting arms of 
Merlin. The little Maid of Orleans went forth upon a 
great adventure and gave her life as its sad epilogue. 
A boy, years ago in the Holy Land, was found missing 
from the caravan. Quest for him led to the learned 
Doctors of the Temple, where the little Christ was found 
in the midst of his first recorded adventure. How did 
the child feel when not arguing with the Doctors ? Did 
he laugh a bit gleefully—and feel as if he were on 
common ground with other little boys who were prone 
to run away ? It may be, he learned much during those 
three days which revealed itself in later years, in search¬ 
ing for and finding an appropriate point of contact with 
dreary souls. Let us rejoice in the Adventure in 
the Temple. 

The first word was a miracle, and it is only custom 

that makes the wonder less.— IV. A. Wilbur. 

Four hands cupped under four little faucets of liquid 
soap; four faces reflected in the row of mirrors overhead. 
The girl at the end faucet paused to observe. Chance had 
drawn to this tiring room in a large museum these four 
women, and the girl, ever keen to the toss of circum¬ 
stance, seized upon this one eagerly. What was there to 
see in the row of faces ? Could one ascertain from them 
what these women read ? Would it be possible to choose 
the reader of headlines, the browser among essays, the 
lover of verse ? The girl studied the four mirrors, but 
the faces were uncommunicative; the printed word had 


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left no trace, and the most that the girl could do was 
search her own mirror for revelations. Those eyes had 
read Wordsworth and Robert Service and Michael 
Angelo; they had grown misty over Mark Twain and 
Saint Luke; they had twinkled over Mrs. Wiggs and 
Dickens; they had flashed to the words of Prescott; they 
had seen the far edges of the earth through the wizardry 
of Du Chaillu and Kipling. Could these bits of vision 
serve a purpose in showing the way to those a little 
bewildered by the vastness of the Region of Books ? 

For every region there is certain to be someone who 
is a stranger to it, and it is a happy circumstance which 
permits one to be the guide who reveals the way. But it 
sometimes happens that one finds the way unaided save 
by the guidance of the chance remark of a stranger, the 
glimpse of an art catalogue, the power of a splendid phrase. 

In a class room in Johns Hopkins University a visitor 
once found a marble bust of an American poet. Under¬ 
neath it were these words: ‘ ‘ He has moved a little nearer 
to the Master of all Music.” Conquering attention by 
the wonder of their message, they lead the unfamiliar 
passerby to the poetry of Sidney Lanier. Once the 
poetry is revealed, the passerby becomes a sojourner in 
the midst of song, and the single volume of verse which 
the brave Lanier left, the reader claims as her individual 
heritage. Little intimate margin decorations may find 
their way along the pages, disclosing the abiding-place 
of well-loved lines. “The Marshes of Glynn,” “The 
Ballad of the Trees and the Master,” the poem to the 
wife of Lanier—these and all others lay claim to one’s 
veneration. 

By a happy circumstance, the privilege of living near 
a street named for the poet has been given to the writer. 


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Usually the way home leads past the street sign marked 
Lanier Place. It may be it is a mere vagary, but it has 
grown to be the custom never to cross the street thought¬ 
lessly, but to give a moment’s homage to Lanier the man 
and to certain of his lines, and, by so doing, another moves 
with him “a little nearer to the Master of all Music.” 

Love for the poetry of one writer usually proves the 
touch-stone to one’s love for the verse of another. So it 
is, the words of Tennyson endear to one the whole 
majestic realm of poetry. The story is told of a man 
who read aloud to a Japanese gentleman a portion of 
In Memoriam. So subtle is the kinship in the realm of 
books that the Japanese remarked, “ I cannot understand 
a word, but I know that is music.” Intimacy with the 
music of Lanier forces intimacy with the noble host of 
other American poets. A friendship with Tennyson 
necessitates friendship with his English companions. 

One must always be prepared to meet the person who 
dislikes verse. The experience usually occasions a spir¬ 
itual shock, but, like all others, the experience has its 
own function in life. A wholesome resentment is kindled. 
One seeks earnestly to justify her own preference, and 
to find lines which, because of their wonder, provide the 
poetical gauntlet which one may fling down. 

Beauty is not a sufficient excuse for being (although 
this statement is rank heresy !). A poem to live with 
must have beauty, an appeal to one’s experience, a tender 
understanding, subtle rhythmic stress, and the surge of 
life-qualities. If I were to let the innumerable host of 
poems filter through my fingers while I watched for the 
poetical gauntlet to fling at the foot of the Doubter, 
I should hold fast to certain lines of Stevenson’s which 
he called the Celestial Surgeon: 


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“if I have faltered more or less, 

In my great task of happiness; 

If I have moved among my race 
And shown no glorious morning face; 

If beams from happy human eyes 
Have moved me not; if morning skies, 

Books and my food and summer rain 
Knocked at my sullen heart in vain :— 

Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take 
And stab my spirit broad awake. 

Or Lord, if too obdurate, I, 

Choose Thou, before this spirit die, 

Some piercing pain, some killing sin, 

And to my dead heart run them in ! ’ ’ 

A realm by itself is that occupied by the poems of 
Arthur and his knights. There are three pleasant ways 
by which one may penetrate the realm. The magic 
touch of Edwin Abbey’s brush provides one way; a 
volume of quaintly-phrased prose and a volume of verse 
provide the remaining two. A rich experience is to 
unite the three, a feat quite possible since the art world 
provides easy access to prints of the Holy Grail paintings, 
and book publishers are in league with libraries to make 
possible the reading of the Arthurian legends. 

Down through the centuries these tales have come, 
until now they are gathered into a volume of prose, the 
words of which were linked together in the quaint fashion 
of other days by Howard Pyle. Artist and author, he 
left to the reader of any age a masterly version of the 
Arthurian stories, illustrated by his own hand. 

All one’s reading of this theme finds majestic cul¬ 
mination in Tennyson’s “idylls of the King.” For 
twenty-five years Tennyson treasured the legends of 
Arthur and his knights; for a period covering the 


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same length of time he was occupied in creating his 
Idylls. The result is that to-day Sir Galahad, Elaine, 
Sir Bors, Blanchefleur are definite entities. They live 
and speak, and we respond. We rejoice with Galahad 
and his bride, who, in the words of the chronicle, “for 
a day were emparadised together. ” We sj'tnpathize with 
Sir Bedivere in his momentary yielding to the fascination 
of Excalibur, the jewel-hilted magic sword. We thrill to 
the words of the Knights’ oath as spoken by the King: 

“I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 
To reverence the King, as if he were 
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King; 
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 

To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 

To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 

To honor his own word as if his God’s.” 

These tales, in whatever form one prefers—verse, 
prose or colour—are ever awaiting claimants, and it is 
a fair adventure upon which to engage, to enter into 
one’s Arthurian heritage. 

It may be it is the mischievous influence of an 
ancestor, a rollicking Admiral in Elizabeth’s Navy, or 
perhaps it is the witchery of the ring of an Arab sheik 
which a certain Stay-at-Home wears; something it is 
causes her to go adventuring (in books) across the seven 
seas. Odd it is that those held fast in the bondage of 
routine which permits of only diminutive digressions 
should so love the Far Away. But fascinated is this girl 
by the word Sahara. Heart beats come faster if mention 
is made of the South Sea Islands. Nerves are a-tingle 
when chance throws her in the presence of Admiral 
Peary or Commander Evans, “second in command” of 
Captain Scott’s antarctic expedition. 


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In one of his best short stories, Richard Harding 
Davis refers to the “absurd glamour” which enfolds 
one who has been to Africa. This Stay-at-Home .vigor¬ 
ously challenges his use of “absurd,” for the glamour 
is evolved of no absurdity. It is the glamour which 
is the resultant of effort and achievement, whether that 
achievement be the mastery of fever or of mutinous 
porters, or of the strange maze of unpropitious circum¬ 
stance which seemed the harbinger of defeat. This even 
the sheltered one knows from joyous years of perilous 
journeying in books. 

Caesar’s terse entry in his record of Gallic wars, 
“I came, I saw, I conquered,” now hackneyed and 
time-worn by centuries of repetition, provides the motif 
for all books of adventure. 

Some one comes, some one sees, and some one con¬ 
quers; and, wdiolly imaginative or based upon actual 
experience, the narrative assumes the guise of an adven¬ 
ture story. One who has not read Stevenson’s “Kid¬ 
napped” and “Treasure Island” has missed some joyous, 
“perilous journeying.” To-day we are reading Conrad 
and are enjoying the sensation which follows in the wake 
of piratical tales—that of having one’s blood “curdle.” 
The spell of the story is so great that one’s very respi¬ 
ration is affected—even the respiration of a commonplace, 
diffident woman who never in the course of her life will 
meet a real pirate. 

There is a tonic quality about stories of adventure. 
They intensify the youth within one; they revive a 
lagging interest in the world beyond the individual 
environment; they spur one on to wrest the unusual 
from routine. 


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Occasionally it happens that real life provides 
romance as fascinating, incident as stirring, heroism as 
magnificent as any that the imaginative pen of a writer 
could invent. Then it is we read, thrilled by the con¬ 
sciousness that this record is one of actual fact. Such a 
record is that of Captain Scott’s antarctic explorations. 
The story of the Nile expeditions made by Sir Samuel 
Baker and his wife carries one far from her safe shelter 
to a land of extraordinary effort. Here it was that the 
words of General Armstrong were dramatized: ‘ ‘ Doing 
the thing that can’t be done is the glory of living.” 

It is essential that one read books of adventure, 
especially if one has limited opportunities for tarrying in 
the realm of things extraordinary. If they serve no other 
purpose, such books act as an exhaust for one’s pent-up 
spirits and provide a means of egress for a highly stimu¬ 
lated imagination. “To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in 
Disguise,” by Soane, “A Soldier of the Legion,” by 
Manington, and “A Woman’s Way in Labrador,” by 
Hubbard, provide such an egress. 

Moments poignant in their import come to everyone. 
There came to Elizabeth a day pulsating with signifi¬ 
cance—the day upon which Mary sought her cousin in 
the hill country. Lucca della Robbia caught this moment 
in the life of Elizabeth when he created his perfect 
Visitation. 

Joseph of Arimethea was one to whom such a 
supreme moment was given. How do you think he felt 
when he realized that in his possession there was a new 
tomb which he, Joseph of Arimethea, might offer for the 
body of Christ ? The tumult of the emotion which such 
a consciousness would impose—such a tumult would 
create a new man and leave him humbled, chastened, by 


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the incredible circumstance. The names of Elizabeth, of 
Joseph, of innumerable persons in secular history, will 
forever sweep down through the ages, and the record of 
their preparation for the moment and their fulfillment of 
their obligations will create biography. 

One may approach very close to the charmed circle 
drawn about great personalities through the medium of 
biography. If reliable, some historical novels fulfill a 
very creditable mission by providing a disguised form of 
biography, but there is seldom necessity for seeking the 
record in disguise. 

If you were assembling a limited number of books 
and were including biographies, what ones would you 
place on the eye-line shelf? Would you provide space 
for “Margaret Ogilvey,” by Sir James Barrie, and “My 
Lady of the Chimney Corner,” by Alexander Irvine; 
“A Boy of a Thousand Years Ago,” a story of Alfred 
the Great, by Comstock; Professor Palmer’s “Life of 
Alice Freeman Palmer”; Justi’s “Life of Saint Elizabeth 
of Hungary” ? The memory of other marvelous biogra¬ 
phies comes flooding down, bearing the names of Louis 
IX, Leonardo da Vinci, Tagore, “Chinese” Gordon, 
Pizarro, Tolstoi, Rodin, and so insistent are the demands 
that, one by one, each biography snuggles into crowded 
space, and at last the company represents as varying 
elements in life as did the Canterbury Pilgrims of other 
days. A slender volume to tuck in one’s coat pocket 
or slip under the canoe cushions is by Isobel Strong, 
who interprets sympathetically and with deft touch the 
wonderful person whom everyone knows as “R. L. S.” 
This is the kind of book to which one returns with 
such frequency that it becomes a part of the living 
of to-day. 


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It is so easy to forget that one is living her own 
little biography, because usually it is a vest-pocket 
edition. A little life, stowed away in an inconspicuous 
corner, occupied in performing apparently inconse¬ 
quential acts, seldom impresses its possessor with its 
tangible results. 

But one can always live little moments in a great 
way, and this is the legacy left by biographies. They 
reveal to one the use which can be made of life’s resources. 
There can be only one “Chinese” Gordon yielding his 
life at Khartoum; there can be but one Mary Lyon 
wresting education for women in the pioneer days; 
there can be but one Colonel Goethals severing two 
continents; but in proportion as the days bring the 
commonplace or crisis to womanhood, so womanhood 
can rise majestically to greet her victories as greater lives 
have risen to meet theirs. 

Over the entrance to the city postoffice at Washing¬ 
ton are carved these words: 

Messenger of sympathy and love 
Servant of parted friends 
Comfort of the lonely 
Bond of the scattered family 
Enlarger of the common life.” 

It is possible that hundreds pass the entrance without 
seeing the Spirit of the Letter thus interpreted, but for 
everyone who fails to see, there is someone to rejoice 
in the lines. 

Certain experiences in life are denied to all but a few. 
Only a comparatively small number of persons may hear 
Scliumann-Heink sing “Holy Night,” or see Forbes- 
Robertson as “Hamlet,” or hold the friendship of Jane 
Addams. But approximately everyone may receive a 


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letter, and although the experience is so general as to 
have become commonplace, yet there is always within it 
the element of the unusual; for a letter is usually written 
solely for you, and the moments of its composition were 
therefore unique! My self reaches out to your self in the 
creative moment of composition and the letter created is 
the common point of contact. 

Many readers pass through childhood to young 
womanhood in the company of “Little Men” and 
“Little Women.” To a privileged few is given the 
opportunity of following their author through Boston, 
Cambridge and Concord. To many more the doorway of 
friendship with Louisa Alcott is through a volume of her 
“Life, Letters and Journals,” edited by her nephew. 
The book reveals, in an extraordinary way, the wonder 
of Louisa Alcott’s personality. 

Letters are an open sesame to the spirit of the writer, 
revealing, where restraint is unnecessary, the charm of 
self. For an understanding of Miss Alcott; for a real¬ 
ization of how she was enabled to live her brave life; 
for the answer to the How and Why of crowded years, 
a volume of her journals and letters will provide a wealth 
of material. 

In a volume of rare interpretative power, these words 
are found: ‘ ‘The nature of the occasion is the key to the 
personal letter. Personal relationship which underlies 
all argumentation, and therefore all letters, gives the 
atmosphere of the colloquial standard. To the freedom 
of this fellowship the occasion offered by the conditions 
of the personal letter opens the deep vistas of thought. 
For the personal letter is native to the silences. Not in 
the business office, not in the drawing-room, but in 
retirement, where, without distraction, the thought may 


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go a-wandering out towards the Other-Self and deep into 
the realm of thought among the things friendship has 
found a common interest in—under such conditions the 
best literature is written /’—Argumentation in E?iglisk 
Rhetoric , W. A. Wilbur. 

The imperative mode often antagonizes the reader r 
for usually one remembers its function as being solely 
that of command. But certain grammarians add that it 
is the mode used in exhortation or entreaty, and it is in 
this sense that it is employed when we say: Read the 
published letters of worth-while people. The world of 
letters offers such a wide field for adventuring. There are 
those written by Forbes-Robinson, “The Brownings, ,r 
Saint John. A recent, inspirational volume of letters is 
“Carry On,” by Conningsby Dawson. 

Howard Pyle left a painting which he called by the 
dramatic title “Marooned.” On a lonely point of sand, 
with the sea stretching endlessly away, there sits the 
desolate figure of a deserted pirate. Wherever this paint¬ 
ing has been exhibited, it has aroused the keenest interest 
even among those who know little of the realm of art. 
For those to whom the problems of composition, of the 
distribution of light and shade, of deft brush-work, means 
nothing, there is still the element of charm. One invol¬ 
untarily asks: How will he be rescued ? If that were 
I, what would I most wish to have washed ashore to keep 
me company—a picture, or a book? 

If we could substitute for the figure of the pirate 
that of a present-day woman—the wholesome, sympa¬ 
thetic, laughter-loving woman that is our Better Self— 
what picture and what book would we wish the waves 
to wash ashore ? 


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Personally, I should hope that two pictures would 
find their way to me—“Dawn,” by Farquharson, and 
“Peter and John Running to the Tomb,” by Burnand. 
The problem of the book—that I am glad I shall not 
ever have to solve. 

For moments of intellectual flight, I should feel the 
need of Emerson’s Essays. For the time when spiritual 
comfort demanded expression, I should wish for Saint 
Euke. For the day when I thought with yearning of 
certain dear friendships, I should long for “The Courage 
of the Commonplace,” by Mary Shipman Andrews. 

And when a rescue had been effected and I was safe 
at home, there would be the White Rabbit and “Alice in 
Wonderland” to welcome me. I should search eagerly 
for a glimpse of the crimson leather which binds Kip¬ 
ling’s “Eight That Failed.” Down from the shelf 
would come Eady Gregory’s “Travelling Man,” a play 
everyone should know; the Venerable Bede and Thomas 
a Kempis; Hans Andersen’s “Fairy Tales” and Blash- 
field’s “Italian Cities”; Dickens’ “David Copperfield,” 
Maeterlink’s “Unseen Guest” and the great host of 
characters from the Iliad. Three volumes of travel, 
wearing the mask of alluring narrative, would be “House¬ 
boating on a Colonial Waterway,” by Hutchins, and 
“Travels with a Donkey” and “An Inland Voyage,” by 
Stevenson. 

And then there would be the realm of real friends 
to be penetrated by the voyager home from her great 
adventure. Those days on the desolate island would 
have taught many lessons. How much of ourselves do 
we share with our friends ? What effort do we expend 
to guide a friend who falters on the threshold of the 
Region of Books ? Do we ever toss a bit of jocund verse 


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along the way ? Do we know the magic wrought by a 
hearthfire and a good story read aloud ? 

The selection of a book is a grave responsibility, for 
upon the choice depends the spiritual reaction which 
always leaves its impress. To the extent that one lives 
up to the responsibility—and it is one which may find 
expression in gay as well as somber tones—the mind 
becomes a golden treasury of fact and fiction. 

Essays afford, of course, leisurely reading. In this 
day when “Gentle Reader” has almost entirely disap¬ 
peared, to be succeeded by the Reader Militant, it is a 
brave soul who suggests essays. However, if you have 
access to some quiet spot, you will enjoy taking with you 
“Books and the Quiet Life,” by Gissing. Another 
volume, one which opens to the reader vistas suggested 
by the title, is “A New Heaven and a New Earth,” 
by Patterson. 

From the earliest days, stories of great loves have 
held the world’s deep interest. Women pass through a 
period when they seem to need stories of romance to 
satisfy a new, unsatisfied phase of life. The garden of 
romance, where one may seek and find response, needs 
the guardianship of one who has entered and explored, 
for many persons form their views of life itself largely 
from the romances which they read. 

There are two paths in this fair garden—one which 
leads to what is popularly known as “trash,” where 
stories, tinsel or drab, abound; the other path leads to 
treasures. One would be glad to shelter every reader 
from the blight of the unrestrained writer, in order that 
no perverted viewpoint be acquired. Life is too wonder¬ 
ful, the realm of fascinating, clean fiction too boundless, 
to permit of tarrying along the Path Perilous. 


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Given an Italian setting, a bit of moonlight and ilex 
trees, and the Gentle Reader finds her romantic level. 
A charming story meeting these requirements is 
“Daphne,” by Margaret Sherwood. 

“John Halifax, Gentleman” has held the love of 
readers for years. Gentle, leisurely, tender, the story 
pursues its way and at the end, one finds herself richer 
for having read. 

“The Day of Their Wedding” is a delightful story 
by Howells. It leaves one wishing—wishing—but rejoic¬ 
ing in its possession. 

James M. Barrie—he who gave us joyous “Peter 
Pan”—offers “The Tittle Minister.” 

The realm of iiction also offers “Ben Hur,” the 
reading of which is an experience which savours of 
no other. 

For many reasons, the choice of fiction entails graver 
responsibilities than any other style of literature. The 
girl who thinks not only of herself, but of the Other 
Girl, when the opportunity to read fiction presents itself, 
helps to safeguard two minds from the contamination of 
false values and unworthy motives. 

A cumulative satisfaction is derived from keeping 
a list of books read during the year. Each title is a 
milestone marking where we have relieved the tension or 
have been forced to “stretch our minds.” One such list 
begins with ‘ ‘Lifted Masks, ’ ’ by Susan Glaspell, and ends 
with Hudson’s “The Law of Psychic Phenomena” and 
Judge Troward’s “Edinburgh Lectures on Mental 
Science.” 

All knowledge—yours and mine—is given to us in 
trust. Whether it is of things infinite, or of fairies, of 
the stars, or of the world of books, this knowledge, which 


16 


is “the longing and the faith that makes ambition, the 
strength and the means of dominion/* is entrusted to us 
in order that our vision of the way may be clarified 
and strengthened. 

Sometimes the way leads to the Realm of Books. 
This is a fair dominion, a fascinating region in which to 
go. adventuring; and whether one goes far afield or limits 
her journeying to the nearby, there is always a wealth of 
treasure to be gained. Seek adventure, every day, in 
a book. 












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